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Tomorrow we can breathe again…

Today is the day. No, not Election Day. I mean yes, that’s important.

But today is the day that political ads come to an end.

It’s like the opposite of Game 5 of the World Series a couple weeks ago. The Dodgers overcame a 5-run deficit to beat the Yankees 7-6 and become world champions.

And while that’s great in the moment (if you’re a Dodgers fan), there’s a bittersweet feeling upon the conclusion of the World Series: baseball is now over for 6 months.

But there’s exactly NOTHING bittersweet about being on the final day of the election cycle. We’re finally escaping the advertising onslaught of 30-second doomsday dissertations about open borders, billionaire tax cuts, boys in girls bathrooms and “reproductive rights.”

Regardless of which “team” you’re on, the in-your-face, “America will end if _______” messaging is exhausting. Distracting. Depressing.

But it’s also over. Today. Election Day. The day of political ad relief.

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Folks have different opinions about why LASIK volume has trended down in a lot of areas. Some point to the economy. Others say it’s negative press. Probably some truth there.

My hot take is that to some extent, the plethora of “It’s the End of the World as we Know It” ads / posts / messages has a lot of folks paralyzed to make moves.

You see it in other industries – construction, car sales, luxury spending. All slowing down while people “Wait and see” what’s going to happen with this consequential election. Same is happening on the LASIK side.

Does that mean LASIK is gonna bounce back tomorrow? Not necessarily.

But hopefully in the next 24 hours, we’ll know who the president is. And over the next week, everyone will see that the world keeps spinning, America keeps rocking, and life goes on. (Thankfully without a scary political ad every time your favorite TV show hits a commercial break.)

So per usual, T-Cole is optimistic.

The future is myopically bright. And you hold the keys to the clarity kingdom.

Every day, someone turns 18 and needs services. Our reliance on devices means we’re seeing a massive increase in Myopia, which affects half of young adults in the US. Twice as many as 50 years ago and over 40% of the population.

On top of that, you now have a number of fantastic solutions beyond LASIK that you can present to patients. SMILE, EVO, RLE and the LAL are all gaining in popularity among consumers.

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You have a big opportunity to close out the year strong and start next year with a bang. But it takes creativity, perseverance and a willingness to set yourself apart in your market.

There’s a big marketing component to that. Staff coaching / development also plays a huge role. Now is the time to assess what resources you have for both, and determine what else you need in order to fortify your mission going into the new year.

And as you’re making your game plan for 2025, say a prayer of thanks that election ads are no longer infecting your prospective patients, or your team.

Let’s get out there and do the thing.

– Troy “Election Ad-Free” Cole

My favorite shows on (and OFF) Netflix…

I was off the Netflix bandwagon for several years. But we recently broke down and subscribed due to my growing affection for tennis.

Susan started playing a little over a year ago, and as a former collegiate racquetball player (recreationally), I decided to give it a spin too. Now, the entire family is playing tennis, taking lessons, and having fun on the court together.

How does that tie into Netflix? There’s a series called Break Point that follows professional tennis players through the trials and tribulations of their tournament prep and play.

I’m a sucker for mindset stuff (if you’re in our coaching programs, you know it’s the core focus of EVERYTHING we do because the right mindset is so powerful). And I had heard this series dug into the mindset of the elite tennis players, who have to be borderline crazy to do what they do day in and day out.

So we go the subscription to check it out. And sure enough, Break Point did not disappoint. Even if you’re not a tennis fan, to see the grueling mental and physical processes these players go through is as eye-opening as it is educational.

Today, I want to share a few “mindset-oriented” Netflix recommendations in no particular order:

Break Point (obviously)
Full Swing – a pro golf version of Break Point. These guys also require tremendous amounts of mental fortitude to grind away on the pro tour.
The Comeback – about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who were the only team in Major League Baseball history to come back from a 0-3 deficit to win the American League pennant over the Yankees.
Untold: Swamp Kings – About the 2006 – 2009 Florida Gators (who won 2 national championships) and the challenges they faced to get and stay on top.
Quarterback – A docuseries about NFL quarterbacks and the physical, mental and emotional toll the game takes on them.

Now these series will be on Netflix for a while.

But another great piece of “mindset” content that you need to watch NOW is NOT on Netflix. It’s the replay from the “Eyes on the Prize” webinar I did last week with Michael King.

We get into the mindset and mechanics of activating the hidden assets in your practice – your non-converted leads, non-converted consults and even happy patients – and turning them into surgery patients.

You can find the replay here, and we drop a special offer at the 49-minute mark that frankly I thought was ridiculous but Michael wanted to do it, so we went with it.

We have 2 spots left available with the “Bonus Offer” for the first ones who claim it. And that offer ends at the stroke of Halloween, i.e. tonight at 12 am pacific.

We detail it all in the video. Check it out here. Even if you aren’t interested in the offer, the first 49 minutes are filled with pearls you can take and use in your practice. So enjoy.

– Troy “Mindset” Cole

PS – What’s your favorite Netflix show, documentary or otherwise? Always looking for hidden gems, so send me some!

Saturday Night NOT Live…

I used to be a big Saturday Night Live fan back in the day.

Now, not so much. Them making a funny sketch these days is about as rare as an Ebola outbreak.

So instead of watching that tonight, you should check out our Hidden Practice Growth Assets training replay.

Saturday Night NOT Live if you will… because it’s a recording.

You’ll learn way more than if you watched SNL and honestly, you’ll probably laugh more.

Mr. Marketing himself, Michael King, and I dive into the 4 hidden assets in your practice you can “activate” right now to book more surgeries. We even show you specific tactics you can use for each. juicyjoycey onlyfans

We’ve never taught it in this way before. Based on the feedback from everyone on the call – they loved it.

You should watch the replay if that intrigues you. Plus, we made a really good offer around the 50-minute mark.

>>> Click here to watch the replay

Talk soon,

Troy “I miss Old SNL” Cole

PS – What’s your all-time favorite SNL sketch? I love “More Cowbell,” and “Weekend Update” has certainly had its share of great moments over the years…

How to “Sell Your Sawdust” in Your Practice

In the East Texas pinewoods where I grew up, lumber is big business.

And there’s a term from the lumber industry called “Sell Your Sawdust” which very much applies to your practice as well.

The idea is that these lumber mills create the initial products to be sold – planks, posts, etc. And the byproduct of this work, the pieces that were left over, it’s obviously tons of sawdust.

For the longest time, folks would simply dump the sawdust out in the woods somewhere. It was seen as waste, leftovers, useless.

But at one point, someone said, “Hey, we have all this sawdust. What if we could sell it too?”

Fast forward to modern times, and you see tons of items made from sawdust – fire starters, particle board, to soak oil spills, mulch, crafts and more.

The lumber industry figured out how to monetize the byproduct of their main production. And now sawdust it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.

McDonald’s did the same thing. The potato supplier for McDonald’s cuts zillions of potatoes into French fries for them. The result is millions of gallons of leftover bits and pieces of potato.

How did they “sell their sawdust”? By turning those bits into hash browns, which are supposedly one of the potato supplier’s highest margin items.

So the first question for you is, “Do you have sawdust?”

Yes. You’re out there generating leads for your practice with the goal of turning them into surgeries. And for some of them, you do.

But the byproduct of that – the sawdust – is a massive amount of leads that don’t book surgery, or don’t book a consult, or don’t reply to a message, or simply ghost you at some point. And for some of you, your sawdust is someone you did LASIK on 20 years ago, and now is reaching presbyopia age and needs a new solution.

OK, on to the second question – “How do you monetize your sawdust?”

That’s precisely what Michael King and I will discuss on our webinar Thursday. Over the last 2 years, Michael has been experimenting with a number of “sawdust-selling” techniques that have yielded significant revenue for his clients.

There are a few key benefits to the approach we’re going to show you:

These strategies require minimal capital expenditure because you already have the sawdust (you can always market to create more sawdust, but you don’t have to)
They are also scalable and highly efficient, designed specifically to require minimal time from you and your team.
If you’re experiencing a downturn in your volume like a lot of places are, this can give you a fresh source of new patients.
They’re repeatable. So you can do them multiple times throughout the year, and we’ll show you how.

If any of that interests you, tap here to register now.

Oh, and one more cool aspect of this – By monetizing your sawdust in the way we will show you, it actually creates another form of sawdust you can monetize as well. (We’ll get into these details on the call)

Sawdust from your sawdust. Can’t beat it.

Register here, see you on Thursday.

– Troy “Lumberjack’d” Cole

PS – I may or may not wear a lumberjack flannel on this webinar, that’s how bullish I am on this approach. Guess you’ll have to show up to find out…

ICYMI Live in Chi (let’s run it back…)

Back in my late 20s, I was part of a secret pick-up basketball group. It was called “Hoop Club,” and every Thursday, we would meet at a gym in Dallas for a couple hours of b-ball.

Now this was back in my ad agency days, and we did a lot of traditional media buying. So we had close relationships with the tv stations, radio, etc. And it was one of our sales reps who actually invited us to play.

The interesting part of Hoop Club was that other than me, the sales rep and another dude at our agency, the group was comprised solely of media personalities.

So like, the hosts of one of the top rated sports shows in our market, the local prime time sports reporter for a major network, and so on. These guys you’d listen to or watch every day, and we’re all out there trash talking and playing ball together. Pretty wild.

And after a few games as it was winding down, someone would always say “Who wants to run it back?” Meaning “Anyone wanna play again?” And of course we would “run it back” a couple more times before calling it a night.

Fast forward a decade and shift north 1,000 miles – Michael King and I were “hooping it up” at the CareCredit booth last Saturday at AAO in Chicago. We gave two booth presentations where we dove into the hidden assets in your practice that you can use to book more surgeries right now, and set yourself up for success in 2025.

And it was tons of fun and super helpful to share these tactics with those who came to our talks, and in one-on-ones throughout the meeting.

BUT I heard from a number of folks who either didn’t go to Chicago, or they couldn’t make our pre-scheduled booth talks.

Which is why I asked Michael… “YO! You wanna run it back?” Of course he was down to keep the party going.

So for anyone who couldn’t make it over to our talk in Chicago, we’re gonna run it back. This time, virtually, via webinar this Thursday at 12p eastern, 11a pacific.

Tap here to register, or fwd this to your administrator or marketing / sales manager to attend. The more, the merrier.

We’ll reveal:

🚀 2025’s Top Campaigns – The two most effective “Hidden Asset” campaigns to run for your practice in 2025 (you can rinse and repeat both for continued success)

⚡️Creative Repurposing Content Hack – How to super-charge your marketing through “Creative Repurposing” to create 2-3x more marketing content in 1/10th the time

✨ Disney World Experience – The “Disney World Approach” to make every patient interaction memorable, positive and geared toward scheduling surgery

⭐️ Referrals and Reviews – What are the most effective ways to put happy patients to work marketing your practice

🤖 Personalization and AI – The happy medium between using automation and manual outreach to effectively connect with prospective patients (super-simple to understand, but easy to get it wrong)

➕ And Much More – Beyond all this, we’ll dive into bonus strategies and actionable insights to take your practice further.

It will be our special brand of “info-tainment,” and you’ll leave with actionable insights you can put into play in your practice.

Tap the link to reserve your spot and add it to your calendar so you don’t miss it. I’m not sure if we’re doing a recording, so please try to be there live.

You game to run it back? Hope so. And if so…

Tap here to RSVP.

Talk soon,

Troy “run it back” Cole